Rant #1 Unnecessary Charges and Micro-Transactions

What do I mean by unnecessary charges? I'm talking about things that companies charge you extra for. Like services that clearly should be free. For instance, in my review of Mass Effect 2 I talked a bit about how EA does it. They charge you extra just to be able to access the DLC. You have to pay in order to pay! It's insanity! The only people who would think this is a good idea, are people that work for companies doing this.

EA isn't the only one though, there are several companies taking part in this nonsense. Activision/Blizzard is another. Sure a monthly fee for WoW is fine, but when you start adding these stupid micro-transactions things get a little dicey. Now of course, I don't think micro-transactions are bad entirely. It all depends on your content and your reasons for charging for it. For example, Blizzard has added several new mounts and pets that you can pay for with money. I don't see the point in this, and therefore I will NEVER pay extra in order to have a fancy mount that eventually everyone else will have aka "That Retarded Horse." Thank you TB (of which I am a huge fan of) for explaining that for me.

Also you have EA, once again, that have added silly micro-transactions into all of their games. Like Need for Speed, you can actually buy all of the cars in the game with real money. WHY? You're basically taking the game, out of the GAME! They do this with NHL 11 as well as other sports games like Madden. You can actually buy boosts for your character that otherwise you would have to work hard to get. This ruins online play because you have people that worked hard for their achievements, then you have someone else who didn't do anything and has max everything. Again, taking the game out of the GAME! Come on guys, this is just stupid now. You don't even deserve to call yourself a gamer if you would rather play this way.

On the other hand, look at what Riot games is doing with League of Legends. The game is completely free to play, but they have a system called "Riot points" that allow you to purchase champions or skins for real money. Obviously they have to make a profit somehow, and I think this is a great system. Buying skins or champions doesn't give you an advantage in any way, and the gameplay remains the same. This is how all micro-transactions should be. In no way should they affect the actual gameplay.

Now I bet your asking, "why are you upset about Blizzard then?" Well that's a simple question. They already charge you monthly, why do they need more money? They don't. That brings me to my final point. These companies already take millions of your dollars every year. Why do they need to charge you an extra couple bucks for something totally unnecessary like accessing DLC or online play? That's right, you can't actually play online with EA games if you bought the game used. You need to pay them. Companies are just nickel and dime-ing people left and right. They are getting to be as bad as banks, and I haven't heard a single person say "I love it when my bank charges me for using another ATM," or "I really hope my bank charges me 35 dollars for over drafting by 1 cent." We don't need this in the gaming community, we give them plenty of money and fame already. Yet for some reason, we sit here and let them have their way with us. Without us, they wouldn't be as famous as they are.